This is the third time that we’ve taken part in the festival and every year it just gets better and better. Our stall has grown each time that we’ve done the food festival and this year we had our own brilliant tent on Victoria Square.

We had two new festival products to launch this year. Our festival pasty was made with our finest steak, Port O’Call Ale from Bolton’s very own Bank Top Brewery and Smithy mushrooms, while our festival sausage roll was made with our sausage meat and mixed with delicious black pudding from The Real Lancashire Black Pudding Company.

Fantastic entertainment at the Bolton Food and Drink Festival 2018

Here’s what the Bolton Food and Drink Festival taught us about Bolton this year…

The Rain Does Not Bother Bolton

After months of hot weather, the rain decided to come out for this year’s festival. It was absolutely pouring with rain on the Sunday, our tills were getting wet, our staff were wet, our customers were soaking, but the people of Bolton were still out in full force to celebrate the festival – complete with umbrellas and rain ponchos.

Carrs Pasties at the Bolton Food and Drink Festival 2018

2. Bolton Loves a Pasty

There are so many delicious options on offer at the Bolton Food and Drink Festival – cakes, noodles, sausages, burgers… and so we are always so amazed that people still come to our stall for a pasty.

Beers and Pasties Go Really Well Together

It was the second time that we took part in the Beer and Pasty Tasting Event and this year the celebrity chef was Ainsley Harriott. We included three different pasties in the box as well as our festival sausage roll and a special Chinese style whist pie. Beer sommelier Annabel Smith paired the beers (supplied by Aldi) with our products and they all went down a treat.

Beer and Pasty Tasting event 2018

4. Black pudding Sausage Roll

This year we launched our festival sausage roll, something completely different to what we’ve done before, but it was a hit with everyone. Even those who wouldn’t normally eat black pudding enjoyed the black pudding sausage roll. Our steak, ale and mushroom pasty also went down very well. It was a different take on our famous steak pasty and it was great to work with two local companies on our festival products.

Bolton Food and Drink Festival 2018 was a blast. As always, the entertainment was brilliant and even during the wet weather the atmosphere was fantastic. Bolton really is great.

What was your favourite part of the festival? Let us know in the comments below.